Why I love a no good, very bad run

If you’re anything like me when you first started running, every run felt like a bad run.

It was freaking hard. It hurt. I couldn’t breathe, the miles felt endless, but I kept going.

Why? Well, I wanted to know why those other people were smiling and what was so great…oh and I had committed to running a half marathon with my college friends {minor detail}.

After a week, a month {ok a few years} suddenly the runs started to feel easier and one day I realized it actually felt really great to run.

I was jazz hands excited for my new passion. You know that runner’s high feeling, right?Then one Sunday you head out for a scheduled long run and find yourself walking home while pondering why any human would ever make themselves run that far?!

What just happened to make something you love so much, suddenly suck so bad?!

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard…is what makes it great!” –Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own

Since I’ve found myself shuffling through a lot of runs lately that are quite certainly not the runs that make us feel like rock stars, I thought I’d share more about why I’m not discouraged.

WHY I LOVE IT

It sounds ridiculous, but I’ve actually come to really love those craptastic runs.

I’m not a masochist.

And fine maybe I’m taking my word of the year a little too far to say I LOVE bad runs, but really they don’t bum me out the way they used to when I first started running. Now I kind of embrace them because I’ve learned that a bad run is a great teacher.

Unfortunately our bad runs often comes towards the end of a training cycle {particularly for the marathon} which immediately sends us in to a spiral of fear and doubt about the pending race.

Instead I offer this…they are a valuable part of training.

PAY ATTENTION

Bad runs are sometimes our bodies way of telling us that we’ve been breaking the rules of too much, too fast or too long. With great runs we pat ourselves on the back and go along our merry little way for the day, but a bad run often surprises us and causes us to take notice of what’s been going on.

Are we trying to cram too much in to our day? Are we stressed out from training, life? Do we need another recovery day or was our speed work just harder than normal yesterday.

Listen up, your body is telling you something.

IT NEVER LASTS

If every run were bad, I wouldn’t have been at this since 2003.

Simply knowing that everything ebbs and flows…yup it’s another reminder of the old saying “this too shall pass”, which lets be honest is pretty much a great lesson for us to take in to every area of our life.

Running is my teacher.

LEARN TO DIG DEEP

In those awful moments you really learn what you are made of and most of the time it will surprise the heck out of you. I certainly never imagined that I would find ways to convince myself to complete an 18 mile run on a treadmill, but I did because my goal mattered.

Parts of it sucked horribly, but afterwards I had a whole new sense of pride and again another tool for reminding myself in life that I can probably handle more than I believe.

“If you never have a ‘bad’ day, you’re probably doing something wrong; if you never have a ‘good’ day, you’re definitely doing something wrong.” –Mark Remy

GRATITUDE

The moment you complete a bad run, you suddenly become extremely grateful for all of your really easy runs or the track session where you were able to lay it all out and feel strong, not deflated.

It reminds you to be truly grateful for those runs when they happen and that goes a long ways towards making you a better runner.

FUEL REMINDER

Hmm is this possibly a chance to take a step back and look at your fueling.

Marathon training often gives us too much wiggle room in our calories and we start eating things we normally wouldn’t, which can absolutely have an impact on how we feel, how much energy we have and oh yes the digestive system which leads to runners trots or bonking.

UNCONTROLLABLES

Bad runs are a chance to practice handling all the uncontrollables that are going to come our way on race day. Weather {hello humidity}, random blister, bizarre chaffing…those moments where you push through these things are what you will remember when you hit the wall on race day.

You’ll remember you pushed through and you can do this!

CONTROLLABLES

On the flip side this might also be a chance to evaluate anything you could have done differently! Make some notes about what you’ve been doing recently to see what could have lead to a run that made you want to crawl back under the covers.

Did you have a few too many drinks with friends last night? Maybe yogurt before your run? Try to do your 18 miler a day early, but didn’t switch your speed work to another day?

“Get over it – If you have a bad workout or run a bad race, allow yourself exactly 1 hour to stew about it-then move on.” –Steve Scott, coach and U.S. record holder in the mile

So the next time you have a particularly horrific run, I invite you to wallow in it, get mad, yell, whatever you need to do…and then remember that you GET to run and that run has just taken you one step closer to your goals.

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Website written, managed and maintained by Amanda Brooks. I am a certified personal trainer, but any advice should be taken as general information and not a personalized plan. All opinions, tips and reviews are based upon my personal life experience and the experiences of those around me. View my full review policy.